c4countdown

Just to give Series 6 it's own topic page.

Quite an interesting change to the head-to-head round. Could only think of KAYAK, KICK and KNOCK in the final.

Seeing KNOBSTICK though! The Osman is a ledge

James, why did you colour those words in white? It made them slightly hard to read.

Nice start to the series.

Almost didn't see yesterday's episode as I didn't get home till gone 6, but when we settled down to relax in front of the telly about 9pm there was nothing of any interest on so in the end we watched Pointless on catch-up. Imagine our surprise when one of the contestants turned out to be Dan Sheehy, the son of a friend. He hadn't said anything to us about being on the show (in contrast to his appearance on Eggheads, which we knew about well in advance), so it was pure luck that we caught it. Then we saw his performance in round one and realised why.

Hoping for better things today.

Ah well.

That was some pretty classic overestimation of the 100 I thought. IIRC only South Africa was 'too obvious' to have knocked him out.

It's been a few shows, but I'm still not convinced by their format tweaks. Five options in the final is interesting - presumably viewers didn't like how the jackpot was won relatively rarely? I thought it was just right, really. I'm a little surprised they changed the head to head - I thought questions with very few answers would be a rich enough seam to keep them going for much longer, but I guess not. Now it's almost identical to the old (but not too old) round 2, with one fewer option and parallel play (which makes bugger all difference really).

Was encouraging to see 'traditional' pointles rounds being used in round 2, presumably they have a bunch of questions that were considered ok for 3 pairs but not 4 or 2, so that should keep them going for a bit. I do worry that this sort of round is going to become more and more marginalised though (one of the reasons we applied back in the day was because they seemed quite predictable and thus easy to prepare for).

Michael Wallace wrote:Five options in the final is interesting - presumably viewers didn't like how the jackpot was won relatively rarely?

I'd be surprised if that was the reason - speaking as a viewer, it's generally more exciting when someone wins a big jackpot than when people win a couple of grand every other day. I may be wrong, but I think in this series they've scrapped the business of unpicked jackpot categories rolling over to the next show (up to a maximum of five appearances). Maybe they now have a large enough pool of jackpot questions that they can offer a semi-randomised selection of five each day? This would avoid the ludicrous business that used to go on where contestants had to be billeted in separate hotels in case they passed on info about the next show's likely jackpot categories, not to mention contestants eliminated on their first show having to be hustled out of the studio before the final along with their audience guests.

As for the other tweaks, I'm still undecided about the changes to the head-to-head, although the picture question is a nice addition.

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Michael Wallace wrote:Five options in the final is interesting - presumably viewers didn't like how the jackpot was won relatively rarely?

I'd be surprised if that was the reason - speaking as a viewer, it's generally more exciting when someone wins a big jackpot than when people win a couple of grand every other day. I may be wrong, but I think in this series they've scrapped the business of unpicked jackpot categories rolling over to the next show

Oh, I had wondered that but haven't been paying enough attention. That would be good. Did they really usher guests out of the audience before the final? That's mental, they didn't do it back in series 2 (oh exploitable), although they did do it to the contestants. After our jackpot attempt we were made to go out a different way and had to explain to a runner where all our stuff was in the green room so they could go and collect it. Made for quite an awkward/amusing period of waiting with one of the production crew who tried to make small talk with a couple of people who'd just spent two days at a TV studio and finished 1 point away from some £££.

Michael Wallace wrote:Did they really usher guests out of the audience before the final? That's mental, they didn't do it back in series 2 (oh exploitable)

To be fair, they didn't seem bothered about doing it in series 3 either, until Sue and I were being escorted back to the green room after our first appearance and Sue pointed out that my other half was still in the audience and about to watch that day's final. "Doesn't that negate the whole point of making sure that we don't see it? I asked. The runner furrowed his brow, said, "Er, yeah, I suppose it does; I'd better send someone to fetch him." It didn't seem to have occurred to them until that moment. But the business about all the contestants having to be in separate hotels is certainly true (or was at the time).

Crazy. I remember when we were preparing we spotted the potential for mild shenanigans in that regard, but assumed they didn't care enough because it required a reasonable level of effort/smarts to exploit it. Then we noticed on the day the winners never reappearing (like they'd been eaten by some quiz-monster or something), but identifying the need, and going to the faff of putting people in different hotels makes you wonder why they didn't solve it sooner.

Michael Wallace wrote:I remember when we were preparing we spotted the potential for mild shenanigans in that regard, but assumed they didn't care enough because it required a reasonable level of effort/smarts to exploit it.

It wouldn't have done in our case as our shows were recorded over two days. Had we not suggested to them that they might want to remove Michael from the audience for our first show's final, he could have simply told me over supper that evening what two of the three jackpot categories in our second show were likely to be. Not, of course, that it would have mattered as things turned out.

I enjoy Pointless and also more traditional fact based quiz shows. IMHO the new round 3 format is an interesting joining of the two.
The viewer gets to test more specific knowledge of subjects (and compare with the contestants) than the old rounds, while still having the Pointless twist of estimating which, out of the answers they know, will have been correctly answered by the fewest in the survey.

Whether that's the reason for them changing it, or that they were running out of original questions, or that it was simply to zuzz things up a bit - I quite like it.

Julie T wrote:I enjoy Pointless and also more traditional fact based quiz shows. IMHO the new round 3 format is an interesting joining of the two.
The viewer gets to test more specific knowledge of subjects (and compare with the contestants) than the old rounds, while still having the Pointless twist of estimating which, out of the answers they know, will have been correctly answered by the fewest in the survey.

Whether that's the reason for them changing it, or that they were running out of original questions, or that it was simply to zuzz things up a bit - I quite like it.

Except the 'new' round 3 is basically just the 'old' round 2 - if it wasn't for the pictures it would be almost entirely non-zuzzy.

FWIW I think the original 4 team version of pointless should have been retained with the best of 5 head to head.BTW on challenge at 7 today its a repeat of the first MW and CF edition

Marc Meakin wrote:BTW on challenge at 7 today its a repeat of the first MW and CF edition

Exciting. Thanks for the heads up

Marc Meakin wrote:FWIW I think the original 4 team version of pointless should have been retained

There are four teams on the current version.

Sorry Phil, I meant the first version of the 4 team format, as opposed to the original 5 team format. Hope thats cleared that up.

Marc Meakin wrote:Sorry Phil, I meant the first version of the 4 team format, as opposed to the original 5 team format. Hope thats cleared that up.

For what it's worth, I understood what you meant (sometimes it helps not to assume someone's made a mistake :p).

Does this mean mine and CF's second show will be tomorrow? Or is it weekly on Challenge?

Yes its on at 2pm on weekdays, repeated at 7pm.

Wicked, thanks.

I thought Julia Gillard looked more like Tilda Swinton than Jodie Foster.

Does anyone know what the rules are for the hundred people they ask? During your 100 seconds while your naming things, if you give a wrong answer, does that negate any of the right answers you give? Cause I was thinking that, for the question where you had to name a year a general election was held, wouldn't you feasibly have enough time to mention every year from 1945 till now?

Mark James wrote:I was thinking that, for the question where you had to name a year a general election was held, wouldn't you feasibly have enough time to mention every year from 1945 till now?

You certainly would. I reckon I could bust it out and do a couple laps within the time.

But I doubt there is any mention of Pointles when they are doing the research - it's just another boring survey, there's no incentive for them to be twatty smart arses about it and they're more inclined to treat it like a test of knowledge rather than an aptitude/logic puzzle.

I just caught up and "played along" in Yesterday's final; I had Oakwood, Epping, Upminster Bridge. I got 2 pointles answers.

Rhys Benjamin wrote:I just caught up and "played along" in Yesterday's final; I had Oakwood, Epping, Upminster Bridge. I got 2 pointles answers.

Was the question Penultimate Stops on Tube Lines? Or Tube stops outside the M25?

starting with a vowel.

We went for Upminster, Oak Wood Grove (couldn't remember it quite right) and Island Gardens (only started thinking DLR about 40 seconds through, would have gone for more - hadn't listened to the rules!)

I had Eastcote, Ickenham and Upminster Bridge - did he specifically say that the pointless answers he showed were all of them?

Mark James wrote:Does anyone know what the rules are for the hundred people they ask? During your 100 seconds while your naming things, if you give a wrong answer, does that negate any of the right answers you give? Cause I was thinking that, for the question where you had to name a year a general election was held, wouldn't you feasibly have enough time to mention every year from 1945 till now?

This is exactly my issue with the format of the show (I've mentioned it on here before, haven't I?). There's a lot of questions where it seems apparent that the people they ask can actually answer a different question to the contestants. "Name a European country with [obscure attribute]" for the surveyed people can just become "name European countries". (Maybe they do throw away all the wrong ones, who knows. But it seems unlikely.)

Joseph Krol wrote:I had Eastcote, Ickenham and Upminster Bridge - did he specifically say that the pointless answers he showed were all of them?

I can only assume they were, since they shoved 5, and usually when they only show a subset of the answers they'll show a multiple of 3. I'm a bit sceptical of this though, because there are some pretty damn obscure Tube stations that apparently weren't pointles if this was the case.

Michael Wallace wrote:

Joseph Krol wrote:I had Eastcote, Ickenham and Upminster Bridge - did he specifically say that the pointless answers he showed were all of them?

I can only assume they were, since they shoved 5, and usually when they only show a subset of the answers they'll show a multiple of 3. I'm a bit sceptical of this though, because there are some pretty damn obscure Tube stations that apparently weren't pointles if this was the case.

I thought this also. Obviously it depends where they asked the questions, for example if they asked it in the Square Mile there's a good chance that a lot commute from some of the further-out stations, and therefore pass a lot of the vowel-started stations on the way. Though if they asked it in a small Staffordshire country village then I doubt that those were all of the pointles answers.

Round one today, Robert Redford Films, must surely go down as a classic!

Charlie Hastings wrote:Round one today, Robert Redford Films, must surely go down as a classic!

Yeah, right up there with the U2 round from Series 4.

Bit weird that a couple who couldn't get one individually then got one in the tie break (not saying it's beyond the realm of possibility of course, just a bit odd). Wonder if there's any chance that when they have to do a coin toss (which was after 3 incorrect attempts in the tie break back in series 2) they just give one of them an answer and ask them to do a tiny bit of acting.

I hate it when people overcelebrate, but I've just learnt that I hate it more when people undercelebrate. See also: bingo at Surrey Quays.

Hi James, is Pointless still on repeats or is it back to new episodes?

Matt Morrison wrote:Hi James, is Pointless still on repeats or is it back to new episodes?

No, it's back to Series 4, as of 2 weeks ago. Don't know when there'll be new ones I'm afraid.

Although, we did have the legendary U2 episode today : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAnRX5tgukU

James Robinson wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:Hi James, is Pointless still on repeats or is it back to new episodes?

No, it's back to Series 4, as of 2 weeks ago. Don't know when there'll be new ones I'm afraid.

Although, we did have the legendary U2 episode today : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAnRX5tgukU

FURTHER UPDATE: Pointless Celebrities returns this Saturday, and Series 6 is going to resume on Monday.

Thanks so much James. I'd be fucked without your help, though please start writing these updates on my Facebook timeline too, eh?

Matt Morrison wrote:Thanks so much James. I'd be fucked without your help

Or you could just look in the Radio Times.

So are we back to new episodes yet or what? I don't remember seeing today's episode before.

Mark James wrote:So are we back to new episodes yet or what? I don't remember seeing today's episode before.

Yeah, all this week has been new episodes, as I mentioned in the above message.

James Robinson wrote:

Mark James wrote:So are we back to new episodes yet or what? I don't remember seeing today's episode before.

Yeah, all this week has been new episodes, as I mentioned in the above message.

Ooops. Hadn't spotted that. Cheers James.

James Robinson wrote:Yeah, all this week has been new episodes

Although weirdly for some reason today they've thrown in an unscheduled repeat.

Phil Reynolds wrote:

James Robinson wrote:Yeah, all this week has been new episodes

Although weirdly for some reason today they've thrown in an unscheduled repeat.

Yeah, weird, although it did have Karyn Cooke (from my 2nd debut) on it. The BBC site seems to suggest it's a one-show blip.

A pair from my school will be appearing on Thursday this week.

On Friday's show, there was a Bond film question in round 1. The question was "Name an actor who has appeared in more than one Bond film", I would have had to pick from a load of options, some of which would have been pointless and some would have been low scoring:

Eunice Grayson, Colin Salmon, Charles Gray, Maud Adams, Jesper Christensen, Robert Brown, Jeffrey Wright, David Hedison, Joe Don Baker, Geoffrey Keen and (not sure whether this one would have counted - Anthony Dawson)

I also got a pointless in the final round.

Martin Long wrote:I also got a pointless in the final round.

Yeah that was a dream, terminating stations is much easier than the ones that start with a vowel like they did before.
I think we got 4!

Martin Long wrote:The question was "Name an actor who has appeared in more than one Bond film", I would have had to pick from a load of options, some of which would have been pointless and some would have been low scoring:

The first one on your list would have scored 100.

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Martin Long wrote:The question was "Name an actor who has appeared in more than one Bond film", I would have had to pick from a load of options, some of which would have been pointless and some would have been low scoring:

The first one on your list would have scored 100.

Yeah, recognise my mistake now.

If Hedison wasn't available, it would have been the one I had gone for had I been on the show too! If someone had put the "r" in as I did (on the show), I think it would have been touch-and-go whether it would be allowed or not.

edit: A quick check of IMDB indicates that Dawson would have been allowed as he was credited in both Dr No and From Russia With Love but not in Thunderball.

Matt Morrison wrote:

Martin Long wrote:I also got a pointless in the final round.

Yeah that was a dream, terminating stations is much easier than the ones that start with a vowel like they did before.
I think we got 4!

My attempts for a pointless were somewhat hampered by thr fact that I did not realise that DLR/LO were OK. I still got a pointless though, Harrow and Wealdstone.

Naturally, I obtained 3 pointless answers!

Must have missed this particular edition of Pointles so I'm glad I still visit this forum once in a while to pick up on dream questions like the James Bond one.

My mind's racing now trying to think of some goodies: Maud Adams, Lois Maxwell, Richard Kiel, Samantha Bond, Desmond Llewelyn. Also I'm desperately trying to think who played Brad Whittaker/Jack Wade. Also I know the more recent Felix Leiter was Jeffrey someone (Wright?)

JR, when does the series proper resume? (Think we've been on repeats for at least 2 weeks)

Matt Morrison wrote:JR, when does the series proper resume? (Think we've been on repeats for at least 2 weeks)

Hey Matt,

I'm afraid my knowledge is lacking too. I was actually for my shows to be repeated, which would've happened in 4 weeks time had it not been for the Olympics.

All I definitely know is that there are still 12 more episodes of Series 6 to go, and then presumably they'll start Series 7 straight away, as they've already got that in the can.

I also happen to know that a certain Apterite will that series too..............., so good things will come to those who wait, Matt.

Ace, thanks JR! You're a legend!

Hey Matt, hopefully you will pick this up.

Pointless resumes tomorrow, same time and channel as always.

Thanks, James, I've been counting on you.

Rosemary Roberts wrote:Thanks, James, I've been counting on you.

Well, I do what I can, Rosemary.